In which I complain about numbers

My current work project involves economic and business processes. Or, more simply, my current work project involves numbers. Lots of numbers. And formulas. And math. I'm a word person. Give me numbers and I shut down and can barely remember my own name.

Let me break it down a bit more. In high school I got As. That's it. From freshman to junior year, six classes a year, four report cards a year, an A for every one of them. That's 72 As. Senior year, block schedule, four report cards, eight classes, 28 more As. What's that, there are two As missing? Why yes, and not just because I'm bad at math. But because the first half of the last semester of my senior year I got...a C. In AP Calculus. It still hurts.

As you might imagine, as someone who not only got 100 As but still remembers them 10 years later, I was more Ms. Neurotic Over-Achieving Basketcase than Ms. Easygoing. Thus the C did not go over well. My parents didn't even have to punish me because I was so hard on myself. But I raised C to a B and wept with joy because it really was that difficult for me and I was grateful just for the B.

Needless to say, I haven't really shined the past few weeks. I have, however, cried, panic attacked, pulled hair, and whined. A lot. I've also started taking what I call "word breaks," where I do something that involves my first love. I write a blog post or an email or, my new favorite, slip out of the office for 15 minutes to read. I come back happy, refreshed, and ready to tackle those numbers! Yeah, not quite, but there are significantly fewer tears after a word break.

There's a small church and cemetery near my office with ample shade and stone benches that is a great place to get away for a few minutes. This is where I've been taking most of my reading breaks.


View from my favorite bench.



Pretty day.



Most recent reading material: Stranger than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk.



Cute sign by drinking fountain.